My friends and I always like to get out somewhere together at least once a year. The two friends I do this with are Mandy, who lives in Baltimore, and Kathy, who lives in Albuquerque. I met Mandy in seventh grade, and we've been going on adventures of our own since we completed our first year of college (and surviving a dorm room together) and decided to go to Disneyland. I met Kathy, who is a few years younger, when we were both in Model United Nations in college and we took trips to New York City and to China for conferences. Then Kathy and Mandy went on a European backpacking trip together (I didn't go because by this point I was married and very strapped for funds), which rounded out the concept that we've each gone on trips with each other.

We started our group trip tradition in 2015 when we went to Disneyland as a trio for the first time. Upon arrival, we realized we needed a hashtag for the trip, and decided on #MAKeyMouseClub2015. "MAK," of course, stands for Mandy, Andrea, and Kathy. So this year, our big trip was a huge road trip initiated by Mandy saying it was already too warm in Baltimore and that we should go to Canada- specifically, Halifax, Nova Scotia. And thus, #MAKingOurWayToHalifax2k17 was born.

After several video chats and a month or two of hemming and hawing about our route, we wound up with a loop that had us flying into Baltimore and then setting out in Mandy's new car. We drove up to Niagara Falls, and then went through Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick before we finally arrived in Nova Scotia. That took four days, and after a full day in Nova Scotia, we then started on our way back, through Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, back down into the US through Acadia National Park in Maine, and New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware... it was a lot! And we managed to check off a lot of states on the whole 50-states bucket list.